By a remarkable coincidence, Amy and I had moved to a city with its very own open-to-the-public telescope: the David Dunlap Observatory. Most weekends while the weather isn’t too cold, the observatory opens its doors to the general public and allows them access to the 74-inch reflecting telescope, the largest in Canada and responsible in part for the first direct evidence of black holes. Amy and I queued up for a while, took a look at the Moon very close up and then went out onto the Observatory lawn to take a look at Jupiter and its moons through the local astronomers’ hobby scopes.

We also got the chance to test out my awesome birthday present from Amy – a hand-held 20×50 Soviet telescope in fetching party-approved colours. The stamp reads TУPИCT-3 (sometimes Romanised as TYPNCT-3), which translates to “Tourist-3”, and the manufacturer stamp indicates that it was made at the Lytkarino Optical Glass Factory (ЛЗОС/LZOS) just outside of Moscow. With a tripod (which I have, thanks to standardised thread sizes), it’s easily capable of resolving the nearer and larger heavenly bodies when the light pollution permits. I now have to figure out some way of attaching it to my camera.